


A Monk Walks Into A Bar...

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Series: Beau Week 2019 [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bar Room Brawl, Canon-Typical Violence, Drinking, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Swearing, Takes Place Pre-Stream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 13:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Alone and without a plan for what to do next, Beau finds herself in the town of Trostenwald. All she wants is a drink or five. What she gets will change her life in ways she can't even imagine.





	A Monk Walks Into A Bar...

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Beau Week 2019 prompt: Brawl

Beauregard sat alone in the Nestled Nook Inn, staring into her fourth (fifth?) ale of the early evening, trying desperately not to think about where she was going next, because then she would have to admit she didn’t _know_ where she was going next. The town of Trostenwald was just another stop on the “No one wants Beau” self-pity misery tour she was currently on. Her parents didn’t want her back, she had a letter in her bag to prove it. Her mother had given birth to a son, just like her father had always wanted, and he had made it quite clear that there was no place for her in his house. There never had been in the first place, Beau had grown up knowing that, had learned to read between the lines of her father’s glares and her mother’s silences before she had learned to read words in books. She had been a placeholder, and now her place had been filled.

Beau drained half her beer in three swallows and reached into her coin purse to slide another silver piece across the bar. Her purse was a lot lighter now than it had been when she had set out, and that was another problem she didn’t want to think about. She’d have to find work somewhere. She had been heading south ever since leaving the Cobalt Soul, getting out before her father stopped paying them to teach her and they kicked her out anyway. Hells, she was doing them a favor, really. They would have asked her to leave sooner or later, she was just getting a head start, that was all.

“Another ale,” Beau said, catching the pretty barmaid’s eye. “And do you know if, like, anyone is hiring around here? Odd jobs, that kind of thing?”

“I think there’s a few notices on the board over there,” the barmaid replied, tucking a strand of her red hair back behind her ear. “Can I get you something to eat with that ale?”

Beau smiled and raised an eyebrow, then thought better of saying the first three things that came to mind. She wouldn’t mind a quick tumble, but better to save it for her last day here, not her first. “Whatever you have on hand,” she finally said. “I’m not picky.”

The barmaid smiled back at her (Beau couldn’t remember her name. Adel, maybe?) and walked away to go fill her order. Beau, still smiling, hopped down from the barstool only to put out a hand to steady herself on the bar. She had felt fine when she was sitting down, but now that she was standing and trying to walk it felt like the floor was moving beneath her feet. Still, she managed the short distance to the board and squinted at several of the notices. There were crates that needed moving down at the docks, and someone had a… vole problem?

“What the hell is a vole?” Beau muttered.

“I think it’s like, a mouse?” The voice behind Beau was bright and chipper, with a heavy accent that Beau couldn’t place. “Or maybe it’s like a weasel.”

Beau turned to find herself nearly nose to nose with a tiefling whose skin was a different shade of blue from Beau’s monk vestiges, less cobalt and more the color of a winter sky on a sunny day. Beau tried to back up and ended up smacking into the message board instead. “Ever heard of personal space?” Beau snapped, irritated that someone had come up behind her without her noticing. She could practically hear the lecture Archivist Zeenoth would have given her about discipline and vigilance.

“Oh yeah, sure, Fjord talks about it allll the time,” the tiefling said, rocking back on her heels a bit, her blue dress swishing around her knees as she did so. “‘Jester, you’re standing too close again,’ is what he usually says, but when something spooky happens suddenly he’s like, super next to me so I’m getting a lot of mixed signals.”

“Jester!” Someone called from across the room, and when the tiefling (Jester, Beau assumed) turned her head towards the speaker, Beau made her escape, darting around the tiefling and heading back to the bar. She felt hot all of a sudden. Was she blushing? She couldn’t be. It was the alcohol, surely. She was drunk and she had been startled and she was not at all embarrassed at snapping at the pretty blue tiefling who didn’t know what a vole was either.

There was a man sitting at the barstool next to hers when she sat back down, sunburnt and smelling of fish. He grinned at her as he eyed her up and down.

“Haven’t seen you around here before,” he said. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Got plenty of my own, thanks,” Beau said, grabbing her half full mug as she gestured to her fresh one. Gods, she did not need this right now.

The man’s grin turned hard. “No need to be like that,” he said. “Just trying to be friendly.”

Beau drained the rest of her drink, her tankard hitting the wood a little harder than she meant to. “I’m not looking for friends,” she growled. “Piss off.”

“This fellow giving you trouble?” Beau recognized the voice as the one who had called for Jester earlier, the drawl unmistakable. When Beau glared at the speaker she saw that he was a half-orc dressed in battered leather armor. He didn’t have tusks, and that would have been something she would have asked about if the circumstances had been different.

“I can take care of myself,” Beau said through clenched teeth.

“Just trying to have a conversation with the lady,” the man who had been hitting on her said, placing a weathered hand on Beau’s arm.

Beau lost time for a second as her father’s voice echoed in her memory. _“Beauregard, why can’t you just act like a proper young_ ** _lady_** _?”_

When Beau came back to herself, her knuckles stung and the man across from her was snarling at her, blood pouring from his nose.

“You fucking _bitch_!” The man growled, getting up so fast his barstool fell over. He lunged for her, only to have the half-orc step between them, which meant he took the punch meant for Beau. The half-orc staggered, and Beau took that opportunity to leap off of her own stool and duck around the half-orc, her fists raised.

Beau realized she was grinning as she hit the man again, and her expression didn’t waver when the man hit her back, as the bar around her suddenly erupted into shouts and the sound of glass breaking, of fists hitting flesh as the other patrons decided to join in. _This_. This was what she needed to take her mind off her problems. A good old-fashioned, _undisciplined_ bar brawl. No need to think about form or technique, she just had to hit people until she ran out of people to hit or until the Crownsguard showed up, whichever came first.

What came first was the owner of the inn storming out from the back, thunder in her eyes. “ALL RIGHT, BREAK IT UP BEFORE I CALL THE GUARD ON ALL OF YOU!” The matronly woman bellowed, her voice carrying over the chaos.

Beau half-sat up from where she had been knocked down, wiping the blood off her face with the back of her hand. Around her, the other patrons grumbled and started setting overturned chairs back to rights so they could sit once more, or paid their tabs and left. Her jaw ached, one of her eyes was swollen shut, and her hands felt like they had been dipped in fire, but she strangely felt better. She slowly got to her feet and walked over to where the half-orc was sitting up, rubbing at his jaw and blinking in confusion.

“Got a bit of a glass jaw?” Beau asked as she held out a hand to help the half-orc to his feet. “Umm, sorry about earlier. It’s… it’s been a fucking week. Month. Life.”

“It was a lucky punch,” the half-orc insisted as he took Beau’s offered hand. “My name’s Fjord, by the way.”

“I’m Jester!” Jester announced from her place near the bar. She was kneeling in front of the man who had started this whole mess, even if he hadn’t thrown the first punch. “I would heal you,” she was saying to the man. “Except I only can heal a little bit and I’d rather heal my friends instead of assholes who can’t take a hint and think it’s okay to just touch women however they like without asking. So I think you should go apologize and then go home and think about how very sorry you are.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Go on now.”

To Beau’s surprise, the man got up and walked over to her, his eyes strangely distant. “Sorry,” he mumbled before turning and walking out of the inn.

Fjord was looking at Jester with an exasperated expression. “Jester, did you—?”

“Oh it’s _fine_ ,” Jester replied, waving a hand dismissivly as she stood up. “He’ll be way too embarrassed to come storming back here once the spell wears off. Probably. That’s like, a whole hour from now anyway. Now come here.”

Fjord obediently walked over to where Jester stood while Beau walked over the to bar, where the owner of the inn was still standing.

“You’re Yorda, right?” Beau asked. “Listen, I’m sorry about the mess but not sorry really but I should probably give you something—“ She started reaching for her belt-pouch but Yorda cut her off with a gesture.

“Your blue friend took care of it,” Yorda said, and Beau caught a glint of gold in her hand before it vanished into the pocket of her apron.

Beau opened her mouth to protest but then closed it again, thinking better of it. Why look a gift horse in the mouth. “Okay. Cool.”

“Hey blue girl who is not me and can punch really hard!” Jester said. “When I said to come over here I meant you too.”

Beau walked over, bemused. “Hey listen, I’m sorry about your boyfriend—“

“Oh he’s not my boyfriend, technically,” Jester said as Fjord spluttered and blushed. “Now do you want me to heal you or not? I mean, your bruises look really cool, but they probably hurt and stuff.”

“You said you wanted to heal your friends,” Beau said.

“Yeah,” Jester said. “ _Friends_. Plural. We’re totally friends now.”

“We had a conversation about rodents and I snapped at you.” This didn’t make any sense. Beau would have blamed it on being drunk, but she was moderately sure this wouldn’t make sense sober either.

“Yes? And?” Jester looked confused.

“Jester’s a very friendly person,” Fjord said, and he had the look of a man who had been swept up in a tornadoand had made his home there.

“Ummm, okay. I guess you can heal me,” Beau said. “Can I buy you a drink or something?”

“Oh I don’t drink,” Jester said. “But we’re going to go down to the docks tomorrow and move some crates around. You want to come help?”

“Yeah, sure,” Beau said as Jester placed a gentle hand on her face and she felt the first cool touch of healing magic ghost along her skin. She’d help these two move some crates around, make a little coin, and then they’d be even. “My name’s Beau.”

“That’s a cool name,” Jester said with a smile.

Beau found herself smiling back, not just smiling but meaning it. She still didn’t have any real plans for the future, but she had plans for tomorrow, and that was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm angel-ascending on Tumblr and angel_in_ink on Twitter if y'all want to stop by and say hi!


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